This paper aims to analyze two participatory mechanisms implemented in Argentina in the municipalities of Morón and Rosario: the Banca Abierta and the Concejo en los Barrios. These mechanisms are organized by the local legislative assemblies, calling for participation within the frame of ritualized scenes of power. Their interest lies in the fact that they seem to crystallize a new political role of presence. By means of unusual presences—those of citizens in the place of representatives and of representatives in the place of citizens—they produce an effect of identification and proximity between these groups.